


Destroy Me

by sherleigh



Category: SHINee
Genre: Mild Gore, Other, inspired by the criminal mv, mild violence, moderate sexual depravity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:09:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26490922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sherleigh/pseuds/sherleigh
Summary: Criminal, the fic.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 13





	Destroy Me

Act 1

“Lee Taesun-ssi, do-”

“My name is Taemin.”

Not even ten seconds in. That’s got to be a record. Kibum glances at Minho, whose expression is grim. “According to your birth certificate and national ID-”

“My name is Taemin.”

*

It’s been a month that he’s been unable to shake the feeling that he’s being watched, being followed. It’s there when he walks out of the dance studio with his colleagues for lunch, when he takes Adam and Eve for a walk in the park and when he’s naked in the shower. The feeling has only become stronger over time, to the point when it feels like a physical weight resting on his skin. Sometimes he feels that all he has to do is turn around to be able to meet the eyes keeping watch on him, but when he looks he finds nothing.

He had brought it up with his parents once. They’ve been paying for 24-hour security since his father was mugged in the garden – something they believe was politically-motivated – at a ridiculous rate, so there’s no justification at all for him to feel watched within the confines of his own room. They had waved his concerns away and expressed faith in the competence of their security team.

Then the gifts started coming.

A yellow rose tucked into his backpack in his locker at work.

A black silk sash – it send a shiver down his spine to imagine his wrists bound with it, leaving him at the mercy of his mysterious benefactor – softer than anything he’s ever worn.

A tarot card, Death, secreted in the glove compartment of his car.

And now, under his pillow, a polished bronze letter opener of the most exquisite craftsmanship. It seems that his stalker has a sense of humour.

He follows his usual routine. He showers and clothes himself in his pyjamas – a loose shirt and shorts, both cream-coloured silk – and sprays his Tom Ford perfume in the air. He turns the lights off and climbs into bed and closes his eyes. His body is tired from the exertion of work, but his heart is racing with a sick sort of excitement. Nothing fun ever happens to him. Life is an endless plateau of boredom, to the extent that he wonders whether there’s something wrong with him that makes him unable to feel joy, grief and desire like everyone else can.

Until now.

Time ticks by.

The sounds of the household die down. The footsteps of the leader of the security team echo outside his room as the man does his bihourly patrol. Crickets chirp outside.

He feels a little silly for being so confident that something will happen tonight, for allowing his imagination to run wild. What if this is all some elaborate prank by one of his colleagues? Or cousins? They’re certainly capable of it. It would explain how they got past the guards into his room and car.

That would be so dull.

The window does not creak – every part of the house is meticulously cared for by their small army of staff – but in the dead of the night the smooth slide of the frame is as loud as the rumbling engine of his Bentley.

Then come the footsteps, so light against the carpet of his floor. He pretends so be asleep, waiting for the intruder to come closer.

And he – or she? – does, and his heart is drumming so loud that it must be audible and his limbs are as heavy as lead and his palms are wet, and it takes every ounce of his willpower to sit up and flick the lights on-

-to see his own face staring back at him.

*

“You’re sitting here because you’re the suspect in a serial murder. It’s not the time to be clever.”

The suspect cocks his head.

Kibum can tell right away that Minho has read him wrong. This guy isn’t one of those borderline sociopathic, selfish and thoughtless chaebol types who dabble in illegal things for a thrill; he’s genuinely insane.

“Okay Taemin-ssi,” he says, ignoring Minho’s disapproving glare “we need you to clarify some things for us. Let’s start?”

The suspect gives him the barest of nods.

“On the night of 25th May 2020, you went up to your room at 11pm. At 7am on the morning of 26th May, you were nowhere to be found. What happened?”

*

They’re not entirely identical. For one, the stranger’s hair is dyed silver, not gold. The stranger rides a motorcycle with ease, whereas he’s never even sat on a motorcycle before. But most of all, he’s never kidnapped a person at knifepoint before.

His hands are bound with a harsh, unforgiving zip-tie and there’s an opaque plastic bag over his head, nothing at all like the fantasy of silk restraints and blindfolds that he’d indulged in, and it’s enough of a challenge to breathe; he can’t even begin keeping track of where the motorcycle is headed.

That was probably the point. 

*

“We left.”

Kibum leaves the obvious question aside. “Willingly?”

The suspect shrugs. “Who knows? Does the sun rise because it wants to or because it has to?”

Minho rolls his eyes. “You said we, meaning you didn’t go alone. Who did you go with?”

“Taemin.”

*

Apparently abandoned mansions aren’t just a horror movie trope. The stranger parks his motorcycle in what was once an opulent hall and leads him up a seemingly endless flight of stairs, around and around, and when he looks down all he sees is darkness.

He’s taken to a room, lit by candlelight, with a mattress in a corner and statues all around. Some are draped in sheets, but some, like the armless bust of a woman, are left exposed, to time and dust and grime.

“Sit,” says the stranger.

He sits on the mattress. The floor is tile and it’s cold under his feet. The stranger sits at the base of a statue, his legs casually stretched, and studies him with some unfathomable emotion.

“Who are you?”

“I am me, and you are you, and I am you and you are me. Does that answer your question?”

It cannot be plastic surgery. He’s mingled with the most elite of South Korea’s upper crust and seen iterations of plastic surgery that even the most famous actors and singers have no access to, but even so there’s no technology and no skill that can so flawlessly replicate an existing person’s features. He’s stared at his own face in the mirror so often that he can see how this stranger has tiny moles in the same places as he does.

“What is your name?”

“Our name is Taemin.”

*

Kibum tries a different angle. “Where did you go?”

The suspect shrugs. “I don’t know.”

Minho snorts with disbelief, but Kibum doesn’t think the suspect is lying. The evidence folder has the reports and photographs taken by the police officers who had been assigned to investigate the missing person report filed by the suspect’s parents. They had found motorcycle tyre tracks in the lawn and treadmarks not matching any of the shoes in the household on the suspect’s windowsill. The window had been picked open. The suspect wasn’t lying when he said he left with someone and he’s unlikely to be lying about being taken to an unknown location.

“Were you hurt?”

He gets a sharp glance for that. The suspect’s eyes are dark and intense, and Kibum finds it difficult to hold his gaze. This is the longest he’s taken to answer a question. Finally, he looks away, looks down to his fingernails. “Yes.”

*

“No, my name is Taesun-”

He sees the stranger get up, sees him cross the distance between them in two strides, sees him raise his hand and swing it back, but it’s still a shock when he’s slapped; the blow is so hard that his vision swims, that is feels like his jaw is broken. The stranger grips his chin and forces him to look up. “We are Taemin. I can forgive you for forgetting, but not for wearing a false name.”

He’s crazy.

His eyes water, with pain and shame at his weakness, and for the first time he questions the wisdom of allowing this stranger – this mad stalker – to enter his life. He should have alerted the guards, shown them the gifts, made a police report; anything other than the nothing that he did.

The stranger releases his face. “Sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Fear spikes in him. The longer a kidnapper keeps their victim, the less likely it is for the victim to make it out alive. “We can-”

“I’m not going to hurt you.” The stranger’s voice is soft. “But you shouldn’t try to leave. The house is dangerous; there’s broken glass and nails all over the floors. You’ll cut your feet to pieces unless you know where to step, and when you start crawling you’ll cut your knees and hands too, and you’ll bleed out before you even get to the front door. And you’ll be lucky, because there are worse things that lurk in the dark than me.”

His blood runs cold.

“Sleep well, Taemin-ah.”

The stranger blows the candles out, one by one, and plunges him into absolute darkness. He can’t even see his fingers when he holds his bound hands in front of his face. His shoulders ache from the unnatural position of his arms, his face throbs and he’s so, so cold.

But never has he felt so alive.

*

“Who hurt you?”

“Taemin.”

Minho sighs and stands up, and the scrape of his chair being pushed back is so loud and intrusive that it breaks Kibum’s immersion. He adores his partner beyond words, but in this moment he could strangle him. With a sigh of his own, Kibum follows him out.

“This is a waste of time.”

“You just have to talk to him in the language he speaks,” Kibum explains. “He’s a nutter, not a liar.”

“Of course he’s a nutter, did you forget what he did to his own parents?”

Jonghyun pushes between them, breaking up their argument with his tiny but authoritative frame. “So what do you want to do?”

“Isn’t the DNA evidence enough?”

“Against Han Kiha? Are you dreaming?” Jonghyun shakes his head. “We’re already incredibly lucky that he agreed to be interviewed without his lawyer-”

“Because he’s playing us for fools. This is all a game to him.”

“What do you think?”

Jonghyun’s question is directed at Kibum this time. “Give me one hour with him. You watch us for an hour, and then decide whether it’s worth carrying on.”

“One hour,” Jonghyun agrees.

“Without Minho.” That’s a more difficult request, because Jonghyun will have to justify in court why he broke protocol, but Kibum feels like the suspect is likely to open up more when he’s not being opposed.

“Fine.”

Kibum re-enters the interrogation room. The suspect makes no comment – indeed, no visible reaction – to Minho’s absence. It’s as if they’re all ants to him.

“Sorry for that, let’s go on.” He flips through his notes. “You said you were hurt. How were you hurt?”

“Shouldn’t you know?”

He does know.

After being reported missing on the 26th,after 3 days of frantic searching by a police force that cares more about searching for wayward chaebol offspring than it does about actual missing children, the suspect had walked home, half-naked and covered in blood. An ambulance had been called, but the medics only found superficial cuts and bruises on him.

Kibum wonders how much of the blood was actually his.

*

The stranger has changed into a white shirt and black slacks; like this, he looks even more like him than he did last night. He can’t tell whether it’s actually morning when the only light in the room is from candles, but he assumes so.

The scent of coffee follows the stranger. He has a bag in hand.

“Stretch your legs out,” he says, and when he does, his ankles are zip-tied and his hands are cut free. The stranger passes the bag to him. “Eat.”

His nose was right; there is coffee in the bag – though it is now lukewarm – and a large tuna kimbap roll. His stomach growls and his mouth waters, which surprises him because he rarely has an appetite. He tucks into the roll with enthusiasm, pausing only to take a breath, and the stranger watches him eat with an expression that he’d describe as fond.

When he’s eaten and is sipping on his coffee, the stranger suddenly reaches out and brushes his fingers over his battered cheek. “I didn’t think it would leave such a dark bruise,” he remarks “but you look beautiful nonetheless.”

“That’s conceited, don’t you think?” The words are out of his mouth before his brain even registers them as unwise, but the stranger takes no offence. “Maybe. But if I am, so are you. Have you ever met someone more beautiful than me?”

He thinks of Kai, his colleague at the dance studio who teaches ballet, and of his broad and tall frame, his honey-gold skin and his kind eyes; he thinks of Tiffany, his mother’s friend’s daughter, and of her luscious, round breasts and wide smile.

They are beautiful.

But this man, this stranger who wears his face and skin as easily as if it were his own, he’s magnetic in a way that far surpasses anyone he’s ever met. He’s like an itch under his skin, a fire in a different room; something that he wants to inspect, to investigate, to tear apart and consume.

Is that what desire is? 

“I am you and you are me,” the stranger says, as soft as whisper-

-and he finds himself completing the sentence as instinctively as breathing. “And we are us.”

*

To hear those words spill from Taemin’s mouth, those words he feared he would never hear again – those words more holy, more blessed than any prayer – it gives Taemin hope that he hasn’t felt in a long time.

It’s still there. Everything that the tried to erase, to take away and kill, it’s all still alive within Taemin. It just needs to be unlocked.

*

“Well, here’s something I don’t know. How did you escape?”

The suspect contemplates the question. Kibum doesn’t rush him, though he’s aware of his one hour ticking down.

“I don’t really remember… I ran, I just kept running and then I knew where I was and I knew the way home, and I just kept going.”

It’s not an unexpected answer. Kibum’s sure he’s not lying about this either. People who escape from dangerous situations are rarely able to recollect in detail how they managed it; in such situations, the animal brain kicks in and they act on pure instinct, so there are no decisions for the conscious brain to recollect. Hypnosis is sometimes successful in unlocking those memories, but it’s not something Kibum can suggest now.

“That’s alright. Can you tell me anything you might have seen on the way, any landmark or buildings, or anything at all that you remember?”

“Dogs.” The answer is immediate. The suspect’s eyes are fixed on the table, but he sounds far away. “Wild dogs, they were running through… a forest? But not with trees, I don’t know what the correct word is.”

“Undergrowth. Carry on, please.” Kibum takes notes as discreetly as he can, not wanting to break the suspect’s focus. Finally, they’re getting some useful information. If Jonghyun is listening, he’ll have called a constable in to map out areas with dense vegetation and secondary growth in an outward radius from the Lee residence.

“They chased me. I… I didn’t think I could run so fast. I would have died.”

The medics had noted the cuts on his feet; the worst of his injuries. It does seem consistent with having run over thorny plants and gravel.

“And this was… three days later?”

The suspect nods.

“Why didn’t you try to escape earlier?”

The suspect shrugs, but then he says “I thought someone would come for me.” There is a touch of ice in his voice when he repeats “I thought someone would care enough to come for me.”

And Kibum is so, so careful not to react because they finally have it; motive.

*

The stranger brings some photos for him to look at. They seem old, as if they were taken on film, but he knows how easily such things can be made via Photoshop.

The first photo is of two babies dressed in hanbok, sitting amongst oranges that are almost as big as their little heads and those things indicate that it must be their baek-il celebration. He has no idea how some random children are supposed to be significant to him and wonders what the stranger expects from him. If anything, the only point of interest is how both babies are a little thin, with twig-like arms and legs, compared to most babies. Or not, he’s no expert in babies.

The stranger doesn’t seem disheartened or angered by his lack of reaction. “Eh, it’s not even a good photo,” he says, tossing it aside.

The next photo is of two boys, about the age to begin primary school, posing in front of Gwanghwamun Gate. They’re wearing grey jumpers and little black shorts and they have long-ish hair, and it’s patently obvious that they are twins.

What is the stranger trying to achieve by showing him these photos?

This time, the stranger doesn’t comment on his silence. He just hands over another photo, folded in half.

He knows this one. How could he not, it hangs over the fireplace in his house, the centrepiece of the living room. It’s a photo of him, aged 16, standing on the street and leaning against the garden wall that’s covered in creeping roses, the golden blooms almost twinkling against their dark green leaves; his mother has often been praised for her photography skills for the impeccable composition of the photo.

The stranger unfolds the photo.

The photo now captures the inner side of the wall as well. There is another boy there, with his eyes and lips and face and build, his twin in every sense of the word. The only difference is this; where he is looking up at the sun, this boy is looking straight into the camera. His eyes bore through the photo, dark and fey, as deep as a lake, powerful enough to cast a spell on him even in this form.

His breath catches and he tears his gaze away, looking up-

-into the same pair of dark, glittering eyes.

XXXXX

and that was act 1! did you like it? did i do any justice to taemin's excellent concept? 


End file.
